Cultural practices of silence as modes of care
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| free admission |
| Duration: 120 min |
| German |
| Ground Floor, Hall 3 |
| Part of: Lecture series Family Matters |
The lecture draws on 20th-century literature to examine various cultural techniques of silence and analyzes them with regard to their forms of (self-)care. Self-determined, sovereign silence preserves secrets and provides protected spaces for the development of new attitudes. However, not every silence is self-determined, not every silence sovereign. Alongside sovereign silence, there are forms of silence that signify self-denial or a breakdown of communication. For example, the author Audre Lorde writes of the desire to see one’s own fear in proper proportion and to be able to translate silence into language. Lorde does not speak of a life without fear, but rather of a relationship to fear that depends on the ways in which one practices silence. It would mean not allowing silence to turn into tyranny or catastrophe, but instead finding a measure between speaking and remaining silent—one in which silence can also function as a “mode of resistance to power” (Wendy Brown, 2005).
The lecture series is being held as part of a collaboration between all institutions of the Humboldt Forum.
Head Curator for the Programme year 2025-26: Dr. Laura Goldenbaum
Participants
Dr. Lotte Warnsholdt, media scholar and contributor at the Museum am Rothenbaum – Cultures and Arts of the World
Prof. Dr. Daniel Tyradellis (Humboldt University of Berlin)
Dr. Alia Rayyan (Humboldt University of Berlin)
Dr. Laura Goldenbaum (Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss)
Lotte Warnsholdt is a cultural and media scholar in Hamburg. She studied European Ethnology in Copenhagen as well as Philosophy and Law in Hamburg. She completed both her master’s degree and her PhD in Cultural and Media Studies at Leuphana University Lüneburg. She works at Museum am Rothenbaum, World Cultures and Arts, she is, among other roles, co-curator of the temporary exhibition CATS! (2025–2026).
Her research focuses on forms and practices of care within institutions of knowledge. She publishes on the materiality and violence of archives, understood both in situ and in digital contexts. Her book Im Schatten des Schweigens (transcript 2024) explores the role of silence and secrecy in shaping social and historical processes.